He was a son of Hans
Gram, whose father was
a wealthy sea captain of Copenhagen.

Mr. Gram (father of the doctor) when a young
man was private secretary to the Governor of the Danish Island of Santa
Cruz.

While traveling in the

United States, in 1782 or 1783, he became interested in the daughter of the proprietor
of a hotel in Boston where he was staying. The lady's
name was Miss Burdick.

He married her, much to the displeasure of his father, who immediately
disinherited him, but repented on his death-bed and left him the bulk of
his fortune.

Mr.

Gram resigned his position as secretary
and settled in Boston, where he passed his life.

The records are very meagre ; it is not known just when in

1786 his eldest son, Hans Burch, was born, nor is it known where Mr. Gram lived at that time.

Later on he was known to have lived on

Cambridge street, and was an organist by profession.

Afterwards he lived on

Common
street, where he died in 1803.
His death occurred soon after the had learned of the death of his father
and the fact that he had left him his inheritance ; he had made his plans
to sail for Copenhagen, but the night before he was to
sail he was taken suddenly ill and died in a few hours.

His widow survived him but two years, and

Hans Burch, at the age of eighteen. went to Copenhagen to secure the large property which had been left
to his father.

He did not obtain it all, but enough to give himself a superior
education. Dr.

Gray says, in the Homoeopathic Examiner, that he arrived in Copenhagen in 1808, but Dr. H. M. Smith gives an earlier date.

It is likely that he reached

Denmark
about 1806-7. He found relatives, who favored
him. Prof. Fenger, physician in ordinary to the King, was his uncle and through his favor young Gram received every advantage.

His friends placed him in the

Royal Medical and Surgical
Institution of the Danish kingdom. Pr. Fenger
gave him every advantage of the schools and hospitals of northern Europe.

Within a year after his arrival in

Copenhagen Gram received the flattering appointment of assistant surgeon
in a large military hospital from the King.

Previous to his admission into the

Academy
of Surgery he had to sustain an examination in
Latin and Greek and Natural
Philosophy, and this
hospital appointment was also preceded by a rigorous examination in
anatomy and minor surgery.

He was officially connected with this hospital during the last seven
years of the

Napoleonic wars, residing in the edifice much
of the time as assistant in surgery.

In

1814Gram resigned his place in the military
hospital, having acquired the rank of surgeon and won the highest grade of
merit in the Royal
Academy of Surgery,
with the degree of C.
M. L., the highest of
three degrees.

He now devoted himself to general practice in the city of

Copenhagen, and he was so successful that at the age of
forty he had acquired a competence for his own future support and to
enable him to render assistance to the younger members of his family, all
of whom had remained in the United States.

Gram

had tested the
method of Hahnemann during the years 1823
and 1824, fully and most cautiously, as well
on his own person, with reference to the verity of the pharmacodynamics,
as in his extensive practice with reference to the truth of the maxim of
Homoeopathy, " Similia
similibus curentur."

He did not, however, feel settled ; his family was in

America ; besides he no doubt wished to introduce this
new method of healing into the land of his birth.

He returned to

America in 1825, landing during the early spring of 1825 in New York
city. He came home a most thorough general and medical scholar, having
rendered himself fit for the society, and became a much loved friend of
the most learned and eminent men of the Athens
of Europe. Callisen, Bang, Muenter, Schumacker, Oersted and Fenger were his daily associates and warm personal friends.

In

New York he resided with his brother, Neils B. Gram, at 431 Broome street. It was not long after his arrival before he lost
his fortune by endorsing notes for his brother, and was compelled to
return to the practice of his profession.

He opened an office in

New York,
but it was several years before he became much known to his professional
brethren. Gray, in his sketch in the Homoeopathic Examiner, says of him :

Dr. Gray

He was too modest by far in his intercourse with his fellow men. He was
not diffident nor timid, for no surgeon knew better how to decide when or
how any operation of the art should be performed, and very few, indeed,
could operate with his skill and adroitness : but in conversing with a
fellow practitioner he very much preferred hearing the sentiments and
opinions of others to delivering his own.

He made it a rule never to express his opinions on scientific matters
till they were sought for in detail. Yet was

Gram apt and willing to converse and to teach.

With a little of our

American brusquerie he would have acquired
within a year after his arrival all the reputation and respect with which
he died.

In private life no man was more engaging, and no one could be more
beloved than he was. Dr.

Gram
was an adherent of Hahnemann’s method when he came to this
country, and he was the first pioneer of the method for America.

It is trot known to the writer of this notice how long he had been a
Homoeopathist in

Copenhagen, but it is quite probable that it
was some twelve years, for he claimed to have been among the earliest of
the European confessors.

Gram

had not been
long in New York before he published a translation
of an essay of Hahnemann entitled, " Geist der Homöopathischen
Heillehre", or Spirit of the Homoeopathic Healing.

This he dedicated to Professor and

President of the New York College of Physicians and
Surgeons and Professor of Theory and Practice in that institution, David Hosack, an eminent physician of New York.

He says in his dedication :

The doctrines of Homoeopathia are not in unison with those generally
accepted and promulgated by medical men.

The subject is a new one tending not only to reformation in theoretical
and practical medicine, but threatening to invalidate many of the
doctrines, which at present, are admitted as correct. and propagated as
indispensably necessary in the study and practice of medicine.

This new doctrine is already considerably advanced in

Europe, and the number of its adherents is daily
increasing.

An examination of its principles will show that it is not to be
condemned but that it deserves serious consideration, especially so as its
propagators contend that not only theory and reasoning but experience
establishes its truth.

This pamphlet was written for the profession and was distributed
gratuitously, especially to the officers of the medical schools.

Unfortunately,

Gram's long disuse of the English language, comprising over twenty years of his
residence in Denmark, gave his pamphlet so quaint a
construction and style as to render it a very difficult task to read it
intelligently.

Gray

expresses a
doubt as to whether any one of the gentlemen to whom it was sent ever did
read it and says that Dr. Hosack,
with whom he conversed on the subject of Homoeopathy two years later, had
not done so.

It excited ridicule also in the minds of some of the profession.

Gram was greatly disappointed that the truth he was
so enthusiastic about met with so little welcome, and this pamphlet of
only twenty-four pages was the only thing he ever published.

Dr. H. M.

Smith says that Dr. Metcalf was not able
to obtain a copy ; that Dr. Hering
had never seen a copy, and even doubted the existence of the pamphlet.

But that he (Dr.

Smith ) had obtained a copy through the
kindness of Mrs. Wilsey, who gave him the copy of Dr. F. L.
Wilsey, one of Gram's colleagues.

But Dr.

Gram was a very earnest Royal Arch Mason, and through this channel soon
after his arrival, formed several valuable friendships with influential
people.

He met Dr. Robert B.

Folger at a Masonic lodge an May 25, 1826.
It is said that he was an officer of the Jerusalem Chapter No 8, and took part in the exaltation of Dr. Folger at an extra meeting held for that purpose.

A very close friendship was formed between these men, and twice they
nearly became partners. Dr.

Folger introduced Gram,
in September, 1826, to a Mr. Ferdinand L. Wilsey, who was a prominent Mason and master of a lodge, in order that Gram might instruct Wilsey in certain important Masonic
points.

Mr.

Wilsey at that time was a merchant, a
patient of Dr. John F. Gray. Dr. Gram frequently visited Mr. Wilsey's
place of business, and they soon became intimate.

Dr.

Gray says of this :

One of my patients, Mr. F. L.

Wilsey,
a merchant, who afterwards studied medicine, introduced me to Dr. Gram in 1827. I
had treated Mr. Wilsey for an inveterate dyspepsia a long
time, and with such poor success that he besought me to consult with a
stranger who had brought from Germany
an entirely novel mode of practice.

With much reluctance I consented, and the result was that the patient
passed into Dr.

Gram's care entirely, experiencing early
and marked benefit from the change, which I ascribed to his improved diet.

But as I could not answer

Gram's
arguments in support of the new method, and as my training, reading and
experience, which had been unusually extensive for so young a man, had
failed to inspire me with confidence for any past or, existing planof therapeutics, I was soon ready to put the method of Hahnemann to the test of a fair but rigorous observation.

Moreover,

Gram's inimitable modesty in debate, and
his earnest zeal for the good and the true in all ways and directions, and
his vast culture in science and art, in history and philosophy, greatly
surpassing ill these respects any of the academic or medical professors I
had known, very much shortened my dialectic opposition to the new system.

I selected three cases for the trial : the first, haemoptysis in a
scrofulous girl, complicated with amenorrhoea ; the second, mania
puerperalis of three months' standing and the last, anasarca and ascites
in an habitual drunkard.

Following

Gram's instructions, I furnished the
proper registry of the symptoms in each case. He patiently and faithfully
waded through the six volumes of Materia Medica (luckily we had no manuals then), and prescribed a single
remedy in each case.

The first and third cases were promptly cored by a single dose of the
remedy prescribed and the conditions as to diet and moral impressions were
so arranged by me (

Gram did not see either of the patients)
that, greatly to my surprise and joy, very little room was left for a
doubt as to the efficacy of the specifics applied.

The case of mania was perhaps the stronger testimony of the two. The
patient was placed under the rule of diet for fourteen days, previous to
the administration of the remedy chosen by

Gram.

Not the slightest mitigation of the maniacal sufferings occurred at
that time. At the time of the giving of the remedy, which was a single
drop of very dilute tincture of

Nux vomica in a drink of sweetened water, the patient was more
furious than usual, tearing her clothing off and angrily resisting all
attempts to soothe her.

She fully recovered her reason within half an hour after taking the

Nux vomica, and never lost it afterwards.

Dr. Vanderburg, pupil of Dr. Gram.

Fourth case was soon after
treated with success, which had a worse prognosis, if possible, than
either of the others.

It was one of traumatic tetanus. During the first year of my
acquaintance with

Gram I subjected only my incurables and
the least promising instances of the curables to Dr. Gram's experiments : but this was simply because I
could not read the language of the "Materia Medica," and it was impossible to do any more without a
knowledge of the German.

Dr.

Vanderburg, another of the physicians
converted by Gram, gives the following account of
their first meeting : I was attending a gentleman on Pearl street, one of whose toes were set at
right angles with his foot by a contraction of the tendon.

I wished him to have it divided, and he assented unwillingly. The next
day Dr.

Gray and myself met according to
agreement, when he discharged us both.

Thirty days afterwards I met him walking the street with his toe
adjusted. I asked him how it was done, and he said Dr.

Gram had given him sugar, pellets the size of a
mustard seed, and thus straightened the toe.

Having no prejudice to encounter, I straightway introduced myself to
Dr.

Gram. I found him using a gigantic
intellect with the simplicity of a child, entirely unconscious of its
power.

He seemed to be learned beyond the books and with his capacious mind
was working out the problems and primal facts of science from his own
standpoint.

I saw at a glance that he dwarfed my proportions immeasurably, and that
I had been creeping in a labyrinth while he was walking in the noonday
sun.

My first trial of his skill was remarkable. A lady, aged 36 years, came
from

Hudson to consult me on board a steamer.

She had been for four years ill with what she called black jaundice ; I
had lost a sister with the same disease. I took a careful record of her
case and on my return home I met

Gram at
his door and asked him to read the record.

He said she had been poisoned with bark, and

Chamomillawould cure her. I said I had prescribed that and Arsenic besides. He said that the Arsenic was wrong ; that in three days after the Chamomillawas taken the old chill of four years ago would reappear,
but so feebly that she would recover without another. His prophecy proved
true.

In

1828, Gram was elected a member of the New York Medical and Philosophical
Society, and a year
afterwards was the president. He was now recognized as a man of vast
scientific and literary attainments.

Gray

says :

Gram

failed in
health completely jest as the new period began to dawn upon us. Broken in
heart by the misfortunes, insanity and death of his only brother, upon
whom he lavished all the estate he brought with him from Europe, he was attacked with apoplexy in May, 1839, from which he awoke with hemiplegia ; after
many months of suffering he passed away on February 26, 1840.

Wilson

and I
tenderly cared for him, and Curtis
watched him as a faithful son would a beloved father.

Swedenborg

He was an earnest

Christian of the Swedenborgian faith, and a man of the most scrupulously pure and
charitable life I have ever known.

In the presence of want, sorrow and disease, secluded from all
observation of the world, he ministered with angelic patience and with
divine earnestness.

Gram

was buried in St. Mark's Burial Ground, between Eleventh and Twelfth
streets, New York city, but on September 4. 1862, his old-time friend and pupil, Dr. John F. Gray, removed the remains to his own lot in Greenwood Cemetery.

In the October number of the

AmericanHom. Reviewfor 1862
articles were published by both Drs. Smith
and Barlow concerning Gram.

Dr.

Barlow's article is as follows :

" Hans B.

Gram, M. D., died Feb. 18, 1840, aged 54 years."

So reads a marble tombstone erected over his grave in St.

Mark's Burial Ground, between Eleventh and Twelfth
streets, on the east side of Second avenue, in the city of New York.

On the 4th day of September,

1862,
the grave of Dr. Gram was opened and the remains taken up
for removal to the private ground of Dr. John N. Gray, in Greenwood
Cemetery, where, in a
lovely spot his remains have reached a permanent resting place.

I had requested to be permitted to be present at the exhumation, which
request was readily and kindly granted.

I had but a few moments' examination of the

Calvarium and therefore do not attempt a full or particular
deliniation of the man's character, but only a few cursory remarks upon a
few of his best and most interesting characteristics, for as I took no
notes of the examination at the time, my memory would not serve to retain
the points necessary to a full description of his many excellent qualities
as pointed out by his cerebral organization.

The body had rested twenty-two years and a half in dry ground, and
although the shell which encased the remains had very much decayed, still
the muslin or veil which had been laid over the face was found entire and
firm enough to bear any amount of handling.

The hair, which was black, though in life dark auburn, and tastefully
arranged, was still glossy and retained its position as entirely as when
the body was laid out for burial.

The maxilae showed a full and beautiful set of perfectly clean, white,
polished teeth, with the exception of one left side lower molar, which had
evidently been lost during life.

I estimate his height to have been five feet ten inches : friends of
his who still live say he was from five feet eight and a half to five feet
nine and a half inches.

Theirs is a guess from recollection after a lapse of twenty-two and a
half years : mine a judgment formed from an inspection of the thigh bone
and comparison with my own.

I think my guess the better.

Gram’s
skull was of a full medium size, with a good breadth of forehead, showing
that he had possessed a great amount of volume of the perceptive and
reflective organs.

The head was what all phrenologists would denominate a well-balanced
head, having none of the organs developed much in excess, nor were any
deficient in any disparaging degree.

Combativeness was large, so as to lead some to the supposition that he
was hasty and pugnacious, but with caution which controlled the fiery
tendencies of the man, rendering him only suitably alive to the resisting
and resenting whatever was wrong.

Possessing firmness in a large degree in conjunction with large
combativeness and cautiousness made him persistent in his resentments, an
instance of which may be still well remembered by many of his friends - I
mean his resentment toward Dr.

Channing,
a most estimable and friendly man, for having incautiously given airing to
the fact of his (Gram) being a Homoeopathist.

Dr.

Gram never forgave his friend for the
indiscretion, for that was the first step toward Gram's fall in the estimation of the faculty in NewYork,
where such men as Hosack,
Post, McNeven, Mott, Rogers, Stevens, and a host of other eminent names, who, up to that time
had been his admirers and had considered him one of the most talented,
learned and skilful men in this country, at once became his bitter,
persistent, unrelenting and unscrupulous enemies and persecutors, and so
remained until he died, when the mantle of their obloquy and wrath
descended with no gossamer lightness and gentleness upon the heads of his
surviving confreres,

That

Gram was a man of indomitable courage
and firmness is testified most unmistakably by the size of the organs
pertaining to the existence and activity of that sentiment.

If pecuniary or other mercenary motives were the actuating powers
operating upon him, his courage might perhaps be shaken, but I believe
that he would have braved death by fire and fagot, or the cross, where
truth, humanity and the love of his species were to be defended.

I should say he knew no fear, but the fear of doing wrong.

Veneration was full in Dr,

Gram,
but not excessive, and under such control of other counterbalancing organs
that I should not expect him to have been under any bias toward….

.../...

.../...

… and secretive ness full, tinder such controlling surveillance of
the more noble and generous sentiments, such as conscientiousness and
benevolence, that I should judge he could not have known an avaricious
feeling ; but that on the contrary, if he had been placed in circumstances
in which easy accumulation had been possible to him, he would have died a
poor man, or at least in moderate circumstances, through the operation of
his ever active and well developed social and benevolent sentiments.

I may be wrong in this, but the judgment derived from a somewhat .careful
survey of the cranium of the man can only lead me to and fix me in this
conclusion of the prevailing tendencies of the individual.

The organs of color, weight, size, constructiveness, etc,, show him to
have been capable of excelling in almost any of the arts or sciences which
engage the attention of the active, the ambitious and aspiring.

His organization showed him to have been capable of excelling in
languages, and though I never saw the man and never heard a remark in
relation to his capacity in that direction, yet I could not help
concluding that he had a capacity for excelling in linguistic
performances.

Was not the possession of such a capacity the great predominating
reason why his

English is much better than that of
thousands of other educated foreigners, who have had equal or even greater
opportunity of learning to think and speak in English than he had, for though Dr. Gram was born and lived some years in America during his
youth, yet his education was essentially European.

His pamphlet entitled, "

The Characteristics of Homoeopathia." is a monument most
creditable to his thought and expression in German-English.

I opine that he was disposed to gravity of thought and expression on
all subjects, whether religious, social, moral or scientific : and if I
may indulge a thought in connection with the facilities of numbers, time
and tune - which he must have possessed in a full medium degree - I should
say he had been disposed to run into thought in number or measure and to
express his soul-feeling in the humming or singing. grave songs
or tunes.

I would gladly know from those who knew him well if I am correct in
this conclusion.

I said at first sight of Gram's skull that he was a grave man and I

(? Un mot est illisible sur la
photocopie ; one word is illegible on the photocopy) : change the opinion I thee formed
on the instant-that a vein of gravity anti dignity attached itself to the
expression of his entire being.

I am informed, since the alcove was written, that

Gram was much in the habit of humming and singing, as
I have conjectured, and this information conies from Dr. Gray, than whom few men knew better Gram’s habits.

With a good breadth and depth of perceptive and reflective faculties,
as indicated by his cerebral organization, was conjoined a not exuberant
glomeration of the more purely animal faculties : to which fact perhaps
more than to the controlling force of exterior circumstances may be
attributed the fact of his having remained single through life, and to the
same order of things may we also attribute the great fact of his
excellence as a man, a social companion and a faithful collaborateur in
the walks of medical and general science.

Veneration, consciousness, benevolence, combativeness, cautiousness,
firmness, attachment to friends and to whatever was good, true, just and
humane were all characteristics of Dr.

Gram,
and the active operations of those sentiments could not but render their
possessor a pleasant companion, a good man, a kindly physician, the
central luminary of whatever circle he was placed in, not assuming,
dictatorial or arrogant in manner, whatever feelings of superiority he may
have felt toward those by whom he was surrounded, he could not but endear
himself strongly to his friends and pupils, creating ties, the severing of
which at his departure must have been painful indeed.

Hence I find every person who knew him well still speaking in terms of
the most endearing tenderness of him as a most estimable friend.

Naturally he was, doubtless, a brilliant, cheerful and happy man ; but
opposition, detraction and persecution had rendered him somewhat morose,
taciturn, suspicious and distrustful -- even of his best friends,
embittering the evening of his days, producing infirmities which brought a
gloomy obscuration over his faculties and sentiments and throwing clouds
of disappointment and unhappiness over his fastest friends.

Future generations of physicians will do honor to the memory of

Hans B. Gram. The plate on his coffin bore the
following inscription, portions of which were difficult to decipher, but I
ani sure it was all finally made out in perfection :

"

Hans B. Gram, M. D., a Knight of the Order of St. John, died Feb. 18, 1840,aged 53 years." (There is a
discrepancy of one year in his age as given upon the coffin plate and that
inscribed on his tombstone. )

Since the foregoing was written and finished without consulting anyone
as to

Gram’s characteristics, I have consulted
with several persons who knew Gram
more intimately than probably any others now living among us, and have
been most agreeably surprised by their entire and perfect confirmation of
my estimate of Gram's character in every particular.

Dr. A. D.

Wilson says that Gram was possessed of a most immovable courage, firmness and
self-possession, and gives some illustrations of these traits of
character.

When

Gram lived in Copenhagen and was a physician or surgeon in the National Military and Naval Hospital there, a menagerie of wild beasts
was there exhibited by legal permission : among the animals was a full
grown lion.

While

Gram was present the keeper entered the
cage of the lion as was his custom, but being somewhat intoxicated, the
lion became enraged and attacked the man.

Gram

seized a great
iron fork which was used to feed the lion with, and thrust it into the
roof of the mouth of the infuriated beast : he put up his paw, sent the
fork twenty feet with great force, one prong of the instrument remaining
broken off in the palatal bone : this diverted the lion's attention so
that the keeper crawled out of the cage both frightened and injured.

By the time

Gram had regained the fork the animal
was out of the cage and coming at him in cage, roaring furiously.

Gram

sprang towards
the animal, placed his hand on the lion's shoulder holding the instrument
pointed at his mouth and fixed his eyes firmly on those of the beast,
maintaining an unshaken look of commanding firmness : their eyes were thus
engaged for a few moments, when the lion cowed before the look of intense
bravery and sovereignty which Gram
gave him. turned meekly away and walked into the cage.

New
York State Homoeopathic Medical Society held at the Cooper Institute in New
York, September 4,
1869, Dr. J. F. Gray asked the Society to take measures for a more public commemoration of the
labors of Dr. Gram.

The

Society, on motion of Dr. Paine, appointed a committee on the erection of a
monument in Greenwood
Cemetery over his
remains.

"Dollar Subscription for a
Monument to H. B. Gram, M. D., the First Homoeopathic Physician in the
United States."

It stated that the body had been laid in

Greenwood but without monument. When the subscription was completed
a pamphlet was to be issued to each contributor containing an engraving of
Dr. Gram, of the monument and a sketch of
his life, and a list of the names of subscribers.